11/17/2002 » Film

I saw 'Devdas' last night... It was the usual melodrama, but the cinematography was incredible. One courtesan scene, sexy lighting, was full of firefly glimmers, six different kinds of sparkling, glittering light sources in a single frame: a water fountain, sequins on a lehenga, a curtain made of bits of mirrorwork, candles, uplit buildings, and chandeliers. The characters live in art museums and mansions? Ok... Lots of tonal control which mirrored the story, the colors went from red to blue as the story turned tragic, backlit louvers symbolized passage into death, a thorn in a foot, a prick and blood, the loss of virginity, and he had the balls to take it to an unhappy ending. This is the same director who did 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam,' same actress, Aishwarya, and same sumptuous visuals...

The print I saw had subtitles, and it was literately subtitled, someone poetic had done them -- they translated the humor, not transliterated. It was the first Hindi film to premiere at Cannes. It's the most expensive Hindi flick to date, $13M, or in purchasing power, the equivalent of a $40M period piece in the U.S. It was operatic in parts, epic in parts -- a childhood to death theme, like Gladiator. The director flirted with the audience, holding back Aish's face for several minutes, showing her from behind only, and when he first splashed her upon the screen in extreme closeup it was like your first, breath-impeding glimpse of Marlene Dietrich, her moon-like face overpowering the screen, not color, not black and white, but delicately tinted rose. The story is from a turn of the century Bengali novel, the music classically inspired, as in 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.' It wanted badly to be a big film, and it was.

You know the feeling when an auteur bursts in, the electricity of recognizing a work of love, the excitement of a beautiful new relationship? Sanjay Leela Bhansali is in his own league cinematically. Like Spielberg/Lucas, he's mostly visual, the dialogue is poetic and the plots run of the mill Bollywood; there are false moments like the opening scene, there's little romantic chemistry between the leads. The villains are cardboard and vaudeville, the music turns ominous, the man twirls a bushy mustache, the shrew flashes jealous eyes. But the pacing is taut and the visuals unbeatable.

Aishwarya is only aesthetic to me, the plastic beauty queen; but I fell in love for three hours in HDDCS, he wrung unexpected pathos from her marble eyes, and there are still scenes from that film (the subtle flirtation in 'Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyan') that are touchstones for me. The film ended with an instant, none-too-modest 'A SANJAY LEELA BHANSALI FILM,' and he never has hooked up with that musical wizard, A.R. Rahman, who tends to inhabit his commissions; but you forgive him the conceit, it hardly is.

And, of course, the themes... a childhood love; the purity of sheltering someone within you; being driven to drink by an unworkable, self-destructive romantic obsession; finding your second love, healthier but pale in comparison; leaving your family, leaving all bridges in flames. Material enough to find yourself in the story, it's the everyman tragedy in high relief.